Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A thriller must be thrilling. A mystery may or may not be a thriller depending on how much breathless emotion it has, as opposed to cerebral calculation.
Home was not the place where you were born but the place you created yourself, where you did not need to explain, where you finally became what you were.
Writers are entirely egocentric. To them, few things in their lives have meaning or importance unless they give promise of serving some creative purpose.
There is a great line of women stretching out behind you into the past, and you have to seek them out and find them in yourself and be conscious of them.
The advent of cellphones may, in the end, be no more relevant than the ability of laptops to change our written documents into ones using cool new fonts.
We all want to fix things. Just as we all believe that so much in life can be rectified. Mend fences, build bridges, reach out, engage in mutual healing.
Oh how I wish I could be as obsessive as Carrie from 'Homeland' when I'm writing a book! That would save me a lot of trouble during the revision process.
She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.
She seemed to melt against him in her terror, and he caught her in his arms, held her fast there, felt her lashes beat his cheek like netted butterflies.
Science is an ocean. It is as open to the cockboat as the frigate. One man carries across it a freightage of ingots, another may fish there for herrings.
The duration of love in a being always depends upon the loved one. I create an emotion in you, as you create one in me. You do not create it in yourself.
He added that a Frenchman in the train had given him a great sandwich that so stank of garlic that he had been inclined to throw it at the fellow's head.
It is rarely [Americans] dine in society, except in taverns and boarding-houses. Then they eat with the greatest possible rapidity, and in total silence.
Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness.
And, indeed, I will at this point ask an idle question on my own account: which is better — cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?
We do not understand that life is paradise, for it suffices only to wish to understand it, and at once paradise will appear in front of us in its beauty.
I have nothing to tell except travellers' stories, which are always tiresome, like the description of a play which was very exciting to those who saw it.
The tread Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause, And hears them never pause, but pass and die.
Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect: to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown.
My books don't seem to belong to me after I have once written them; and I find myself delivering opinions about them as if I had nothing to do with them.
The plant is blind but it knows enough to keep pushing upwards towards the light, and it will continue to do this in the face of endless discouragements.
Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole history of English poetry has been de-termined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?
Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.
Small men oft feel a need to prove their courage with unseemly boasts," he declared. "I doubt if he could kill a duck." Tyrion shrugged. "Fetch the duck.
Tyrion wondered what it would be like to have a twin, and decided that he would rather not know. Bad enough to face himself in a looking glass every day.
God has written in the law of nature that when two people are joined in love or friendship, one must always give his heart more perfectly than the other.
If we can't have comedy books written about aspects of womanhood without going into a panic attack about it, then we haven't got very far at being equal.
Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them to be men of much greater profundity then they really are.
It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it.
A courage which looks easy & yet is rare; the courage of a teacher repeating day after day the same lessons - the least rewarded of all forms of courage.
Women are tenacious, and all of them should be tenacious of respect; without esteem they cannot exist; esteem is the first demand that they make of love.
Every cataclysm is welcomed by somebody; there is always someone to rejoice at disaster and see in it the prospect of a new beginning and a better world.
What's with the cute shoelace on your head?" "What this?" He flicked the end of the cord with his finger. "Yeah. Rambo called, he wants his bandana back.
I don't want it to be attributed to a loss of control on my part. When I throw you out of the window, I want there to be no doubt the act was deliberate.
Andrea raised her eyebrows. "Look at you, all high-speed." "Yeah, you'd think I was a detective or something." Andrea held her hand out. "You'll jinx it.
..the writer's obsession - the desire to know and communicate, or, rather, to know everything so as to communicate with the greatest degree of precision.
Whatever a person may pray for, that person prays for a miracle. Every prayer comes down to this - Almighty God, grant that two times two not equal four.
I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
The people who pretend that dying is rather like strolling into the next room always leave me unconvinced. Death, like birth, must be a tremendous event.
Why will you be always sallying out to break lances with other people's wind-mills, when your own is not capable of grinding corn for the horse you ride?
Her voice was now so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless.
Just as we bemoan the passing away of the Great Novel, a great novelist is likely to emerge, perhaps even from Denmark or Switzerland, to prove us wrong.
Vegas is like the old definition of writing: though I don't enjoy writing, I love having written. Though I didn't enjoy Vegas, I love having lived there.
Promise me that if I ever get Alzheimer’s or dementia, and I don’t remember anyone that you’ll visit me every day and read to me like Noah read to Allie.
I run behind her, letting her stay a few steps ahead of me so if she happens to fall I’ll be there to laugh at her first and then help her up afterwards.
Christ, don't you ever knock? It's Lassiter. L-A-S-S-I-T-E-R. How is it possible you're still getting me confused with someone else? Do I need a nametag?
It was hard to know what was worse: him being with her and all her sisters, or him being with none of them because his heart was held by another. -Cormia
You aren't ever going to be anything in this world unless you do what you want to do, when you want to do it--don't plan anything, just go out and do it.
And I said, 'That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once and for all.
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.